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monaboyd Jul. 2nd, 2005 10:16 am)
peeshwank.livejournal.com posting in monaboyd Jul. 2nd, 2005 10:16 am)Author: Peeshwank
Pairing: Monaboyd (Who else?)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Not even going to try…just strap yourselves in.
Disclaimer: Exists only in my imagination. I need therapy. Don’t hurt me.
This is Part II
****
It is nothing like bungee jumping.
There is no carefully controlled launch. There is a confusion of wind-buffeted arms and legs clutching and wrapping around each other in a tumble of mutual shock.
There is no calm breathing exercises to keep you focused. There are shared screams, final desperate cries of denial wretched from throats and torn away by the wind.
There is no beautiful vista opening beneath them. There is a dizzying somersault of sensory overload… a spinning pandemonium of sky, concrete façade, and cityscape jumbling the senses.
There is no comforting knowledge of a cord tied around ankles to eventually stop a fall. There is only the mind annihilating terror of death approaching at light speed.
There is no gradual slowing as the bungee cord pulls taut. There is an abrupt yank as the fire hose around Billy’s middle suddenly reaches the end of its length. The two of them are torn out of free fall by a jerk so powerful, it seems to be trying to pull them out of reality into an alternate existence.
Dom feels more than hears Billy cry out in pain as the hose tightens around his chest. The sudden shift in motion nearly rips Dom free of Billy’s arms. He feels himself slide downward, still falling as Billy comes to an abrupt halt. In panic, he tightens his hold, and feels Billy do the same, his legs wrapping around Dom’s body, sealing them even closer together.
And then they spin, whirling in space like drunken marionettes. Dom finds his mouth flooded with the metallic taste of blood, and figures he’s bitten his tongue, though he registers no pain. He swallows thickly, not knowing what else to do. The iron taste and spinning motion send his senses reeling and he closes his eyes and wills himself not to be sick. Pressed close to Billy’s abdomen, he can hear the staccato pounding of his friend’s heart. Or maybe that is his own heart’s frantic tripping which fills his ears. Either way, it gives him something to focus upon to try and calm his heart and mind and stomach.
With eyes closed, he doesn’t see the side of the building looming closer. Doesn’t even know they are headed for it until it slams into him from behind, hard. His head is thrown back by the impact and strikes sharply against the granite façade. Lights and pain explode behind his eyes, agonizing flashes of white and red that fade along with his consciousness.
****
When he and Dom are hurled into the side of the building, Billy is still disoriented, his mind seemingly caught in the same crazed pirouettes as his body. His chest feels crushed, all the breath having been driven from his lungs when the firehose tightened around him. He can only draw air in short, inadequate gulps that leave him lightheaded and dizzy. He has seen the hard stone of the building approaching. He should realize the threat. Should cry out a warning. But he is too lost in his own panic and pain. He doesn’t really see, doesn’t understand till they hit. He actually hears the crack as Monaghan’s head bounces against the stone. Dom lets out stifled cry, and then melts, going slack in Billy’s arms. Billy feels the long fingers slowly loosening, releasing their death grip. Limp arms slide free and fall wide, fingers uncurling. And as Dom’s suddenly lax weight drags him even further from Billy’s clasp, Boyd throws back his head, cursing Dom, fate, and fecking L.A. in a breathless keen of frustration offered up to the heavens.
Entwined, they bounce along the side of the building, then spin away again, twisting on the end of their lifeline. Lying limp in Billy’s arms, Dom sways with the motion, lashes stark against his waxen-pale face, mouth slightly parted, a small trickle of blood staining the corner of his lips. He looks dead, and Billy feels his heart stutter in his chest.
No. No. No. No, he chants to himself, not sure if he is speaking only in his mind or if the words of denial are actually slipping passed his lips.
Dom isn’t dead.
Billy will not let him be dead.
He has lost to Death before. Years ago, Death crept into his life and stole away love and security. But then he had only been a boy – a small, frightened boy with only a child’s strength. Now he is a man, with a man’s will and a man’s determination and he will not let Death lay waste to his life again without fighting with everything he has.
Billy grits his teeth and clutches Dom to his slight frame, wrapping arms, legs - the very fiber of his being - around his friend.
Not dead, he tells himself. Not dead, just unconscious. And as such, totally in Billy’s care.
They hit the side of the building again, with less force this time, bouncing a couple times, then just hang there, swaying in a gently pendulum motion that is almost comforting. Dom’s shaggy, blond head lolls loosely with the motions, exposing his pale, vulnerable throat to the sky. The thin thread of blood from his mouth has begun to curl across this throat, as though laying a path in anticipation of a blade. Yet his empty palms, fallen open, seem to plead for deliverance.
Sacrifice or redemption.
Deliverance or death.
It appears Dom had checked out and left the choice up to Billy. Laid his life in Billy’s hands – or more specifically in the strength of those small hands, those slender fingers, the ability of them to hold on even against the inexorable pull of gravity that is threatening to wrench them apart.
Unconscious, Dom will never know if Billy drops him. Will never know if Billy fails and yields Dom up to gravity and annihilation. He will fall to his death blessedly unaware that his best friend and lover has let him slip away.
But Billy will know.
Billy will always know.
And so he clings, muscles twitching with the strain. His heart and mind crying out in despair with every fraction Dom slides lower in his grip.
He will not let Dom go.
Will not let him fall.
He will NOT.
Above, he thinks he can hear screaming. Sean and Elijah he supposes. He feels a twinge of pity for them. What a godawful situation to be in, watching your friends dangle above certain death, but then again, his situation is far worse, so perhaps he should save his sympathy.
The vice around his chest will not ease, and he wonders about broken ribs. He also wonders about the strength of the firehose. In his mind, he can envision it slowly unraveling or pulling free of the wall. Come to think of it, isn’t what happened in the movie when the hero tied himself to a firehose? How come he hadn’t remembered that till now? Just how heavy are he and Dom anyway? Whatever Dom weighed he seems to have gained at least three stone in the last few minutes.
Billy starts doing calculations in his head, adding up their combined weight, then quite deliberately makes himself stop. It will do no good. Either the hose will hold, or it won’t. Fretting about it will change nothing, and he has other more immediate things to think about, like not losing a hold of Dom who seems to be inching lower in his arms with every breath. However, dropping him is not an option, will never be an option. He’d made that mistake once, he now realizes. Back in his hotel room. He had dropped Dom then, letting him slip through his fingers. Had turned away when Dom reached out for help and let him fall alone. Less than an hour ago, though it seems a lifetime.
“Please, Dom,” he begs. “Please don’t…”
And feels pain rip through his heart as he hears the echo of Dom’s own voice in his head, begging, “Please, Billy. Please don’t do this…”
How have they come to this? How did they ended up here, suspended above the Los Angeles skyline? It seems impossible, but then again, this is Dom, and nothing involving Dom is ever really predictable. It is one of the things Billy paradoxically finds both most endearing and most frustrating about his mate. Billy had expected hysterics. Had spent weeks steeling him to face Dom’s sense of betrayal and anger. He had known it would be distasteful; torturous and heart wrenching, but he had clung to the hope that their friendship would hold firm through it all. That they would emerge from the other side, more or less intact.
If they fell now, there would be nothing ‘intact’ about either of them.
He had thought he was prepared, but how do you prepare for the completely unimaginable? Is it all going to end like this? Talk about a grand exit. They will make headlines, that is certain. What will Ali think? Will she ever be able to put it all together? Will anyone?
It is a shame, but people most likely will blame Dom for all of it. He can almost hear the talk. That reckless Manchurian windae licker, arseing about on a building ledge. Probably shedded on drugs or alcohol. And he will be cast in the light of the Hobbit Hero, bravely trying to save his friend only to end up sacrificing his life. No one will ever realize that he had been the one who had set the whole fiasco in motion.
“I’m sorry, Dom,” he whispers, longing to run a hand through his lover’s unruly hair, feel the soft thatch sift through his fingers. But he doesn’t dare. Doesn’t dare loosen his hold even a fraction.
Oh, how he wishes those stormy eyes would open again. How he longs to gaze into them and beg forgiveness. Say, “I’m sorry. I do love you. I do,” again. If they are to die this way, at least grant him the chance to set things to rights.
****FLASHBACK****
When Dom went down on his knees, Billy finally had to turn his back. He simply couldn’t watch Dom debase himself like that, not without disintegrating into fragments, and one of them had to get them both though this relatively intact. He had planned for this. He’d known it would be grievous and messy, and leave them both spattered with emotional offal, but the reality of it turned out to be far worse than even the nightmares that had plagued him since he had determined to end it.
Billy hated it. He hated watching Dom bleed out in front of him, staining them both with sodden, red agony. He hated watching that familiar face twisted in anger and devastated by grief. He hated hearing that beloved accent go rough with tears and caustic with outrage. He hated watching someone with such personal integrity reduced to begging on his knees.
He hated being the cause of all of it. It made him ill, and when it was all over he had no doubt he would spend several hours of penance on his knees crouched over the porcelain altar, vomiting up everything he’d eaten for a month.
Billy understood pain. He understood loss and heartbreak, but Billy also understood reality.
There were no ‘happily ever after’s. There were, ‘we do the best we can’s, and ‘we make the most of what we have’s, and that sometimes you just had to settle for less than perfect, because life wasn’t perfect. Billy knew that, and he knew that most of the time you have to make your own happiness, because no one is going to give it to you.
But Dom…Dom was still begging for lollipops.
And at times this gulf of years and experience between them seemed insurmountable, because things Billy dismissed as sappy sentimentality, Dom held as truths. Dom believed in things like ‘the power of group hugs’ and ‘you and me against the world’ and ‘love conquers all’. For him, life was the Beatles soaring through marmalade skies, singing, “All you need is love…” joined by a chorus of dancing stars; while in Billy’s head the Stones sneered, “You can’t always get what you want…”
And dammit, Dom had to grow up sometime, but Billy hadn’t really wanted to be the one to force it upon him. He’d have much preferred to have been on the other end of a phone conversation, offering comfort and solace while Dom cried out his broken heart. And that was one reason he had put this off for so long. He hadn’t wanted to be the cause of this kind of distress. Hadn’t wanted to see the betrayal and hurt on Dom’s face. He had hoped Dom would find someone else, someone to ease the parting, but Dom hadn’t wanted to let go, and it seemed the farther away they were physically, the more closely Dom clung emotionally.
Billy wouldn’t deny they were good together. They were more than good. Dom was like another part of himself he hadn’t known was missing till he stumbled across it. And that in itself was frightening, because when he was around Dom, Billy sometimes felt like he was a different person. Someone who could too easily start believing in Valentine card sentimentality, happily-ever-after's, and marmalade skies.
And that was dangerous.
So this had to end.
Billy was going to marry Ali. They were going to have a nice home and a good life, and grow old together, and to do that, Billy had to give up Dom. And Dom had to give up Billy.
They could still be friends. Best mates. Billy wanted that. He didn’t want to lose all of Dom. He wanted Dom in his life forever, but some things had to change, because things did. They changed, and it was high time Dom got that through his thick, Mancunian skull.
And Billy told him so.
Then ducked when Dom hurled an ashtray at him.
But through it all, he held it together, gave as good as he got, maintained his emotional distance until Dom sank to his knees, begging. And then he had to turn away. His back was still turned when Dom finally left, slamming out the door. Only then did he allow himself to sink onto the bed and fall apart.
It was there Sean and Elijah later found him. And while Sean sat beside him and pulled him into a tight embrace, Elijah went in search of Dom.
And returned white faced and babbling about Dom and suicide and “OhmyGodyougottocomequick…”
***
Something cool ticks his chin, and Billy realizes it is a tear, poised to fall into the oblivion below. He hasn’t even realized he is crying, but his face is wet with the evidence that he has been weeping for some time. Strange. He would not have thought he had any tears left today.
Dom slips a fraction lower and Billy closes his eyes, his world narrowing to just the two of them, holding on, rocking gently on a slender lifeline.
He dredges up words, shrouded in time. Words of comfort. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” Images come back to him - Sundays spent sitting beside his sister and his Gram in the drafty, stone church of his youth. “Thy rod and staff they are a comfort to me.” He might not be getting the words exactly right. It has been a long time since he heard his grandmother reciting them, but Billy chooses to believe the Almighty wouldn’t be overly concerned about semantics under the circumstances. His Scottish lilt rises and falls, indistinct amid the sounds of traffic below. A lone, tearful voice on the verge of panic, seeking some sort of mooring in the sound of prayer.
“Thou art with me…I will fear no evil…I will fear no…”
God, I am so afraid…
“Mr. Boyd? Can you hear me? Mr. Boyd? Billy?”
It takes Billy a moment to realize that someone is calling his name – a voice from above - and his first reaction is a faint sense of disappointment, for although God has a pleasantly deep and calming voice, he apparently also has an American accent. Then his rational mind catches up, and his eyes fly open in surprise.
“Billy? Can you hear me? Up here, son.”
By tilting his head back, Billy can gaze up the side of the building into the dark, strong-featured face of a man leaning out a window few meters above them. The man’s gear and apparel identify him as a firefighter.
Relief floods through Billy and he relaxes just a fraction.
And Dom slips.
In panic, Billy tightens his hold again, chanting, “No no no no!” Not now. Not when rescue is finally at hand. “Just a bit longer, Dommeh. Just a wee bit longer, love.”
He tilts his face up the rescue worker, straining to get enough breath into his lungs to make his voice heard, “Please. He’s slipping. I can’t hold him. Please help us!”
He isn’t sure if the firefighter is able to discern his words, but the man seems reassured that Billy is at least responding to him. He starts explaining what he is planning while his hands are busy working with various pieces of rope and safety gear. “We’re coming down to you, Billy. We will get some rescue shorts on you and your friend and lower you both through a window below you. Just hold on a few minutes longer.”
“Just hold on…” The man makes it sound so simple.
Not so simple, thinks Billy, as his body trembling with the strain. Not so simple, aye Dom? None of this is simple. You and I don’t do simple, do we? At least I don’t do simple when you’re around.
As if in reply to the unspoken commentary, Dom lets out a soft grunt of sound and begins to stir in Billy’s arms.
Oh, shite! Billy wails in silent panic as Dom struggles towards wakefulness. Not now! Unaware of their precarious position, Dom’s increasingly distraught motions set them swaying again. Semi-conscious, he registers only that he is being restricted. Whimpering, he begins to fret, arms and legs flailing about in an effort to escape Billy’s hold.
“Dom, you eejit! Stop it!” snaps Billy, striving to maintain his hold on his squirming friend. What had he been wishing for just minutes ago? That Dom would wake up? He takes it all back. “Go back to sleep, you great pillock. You’re going to get us both killed!”
Dom arches in Billy’s hold, hands trying to push away, to get free.
Not this time, vows Boyd. I’m not letting you go so easily this time, Dommeh. Learned my lesson, I did.
So intent is he on holding onto a writhing Monaghan, he doesn’t register the two firefighters lowering themselves from the window above, until they are nearly on top of him. As it is, when four legs and two pair of black boots suddenly intrude on his awareness, he squeaks in surprise and nearly drops Dom anyway.
He is very glad he has opted not to wear his black, wool kilt to this affair. This whole situation is awkward enough without having to worry about flashing half of L.A. while being rescued. He’d thought about wearing it. Had even packed the thing, carefully wrapped in tissue. However, Dom has a thing for Billy in a “skirt” as he has so often mentioned. Usually it is something Billy enjoys exploiting. But not this trip. This trip he has done his best not to whet Dom’s appetites. The kilt had stayed in the suitcase.
“Easy,” reassures a voice. A woman’s voice, Billy realizes. “We’re almost with you.” Then suddenly there is a strong boned woman dangling at his side, a firefighter with frizzy, light hair peeking out from under her helmet. She gives him a quick smile. “We’re going to rig you up, now.” Behind Dom, Billy can see the dark skinned firefighter working swiftly to fasten some sort of emergency harness contraption around Dom.
“I cannae let go!” Billy starts to explain, fearful they are going to try and take Dom away from him. “I have to hold on to him. See, I dropped him before! I dinnae mean to…but I did. I dropped him!” The firefighter is working as quickly and efficiently as her partner, passing some sort of harness around his body, as Billy continues to try an explain to her, to Dom, to himself, the folly of his decision. “I didn’t think I could have her and still hold onto him, so I let him go and he fell. I didn’t mean to do that. It was just I was fearty you see…but this is worse. Losing him. I can’t live with that. I got it all backwards, you see? I thought I couldn’t be with him, but I can’t be without him.”
On some level he realizes he is havering. But that is all right. This is all a nightmare anyway, and you aren’t supposed to make sense in a nightmare. Besides, he figures rescue workers are used to dealing with nutters. They do it all the time, at least that’s the way it seems on those American reality entertainment shows Dom and Elijah like to cajole him into watching… a whole world filled with nutters it sometimes seems, and now, here he is, another of those balmy people. But maybe they aren’t so balmy. Maybe they are just really scared. Or really worried about the people they love. Or just very confused. Maybe they aren’t so different. He doesn’t think he’ll be laughing at the people on those shows much after this.
Dom is still wriggling in agitation, like a restless worm on a hook. Moaning, he whips his head rapidly from side to side, and whacks Boyd hard across the chin.
Billy’s head jolts back from the blow. Shooting stars flare across his sight, followed by creeping blackness, which bleeds across his vision, swallowing the light.
Oh no! He can’t loose consciousness! He will drop Dom! Billy draws in deep, rapid breaths, trying to fight the encroaching darkness, but despite the screaming denial in his own mind, he feels himself succumbing. Feels his body going numb, slipping from his control. Feels his grip loosening. Feels Dom sliding free. Reality drains away, narrowing down to a pinpoint. No! No! No!
Billy tries to scream.
He never knows if the sound leaves his throat.
*****
When Billy regains consciousness, it isn’t the rebound of things that have been missing that he notes first. It isn’t the seep of light, creeping under the edges of barely open lids. It isn’t the welling of sound, of strange voices and movement swirling around him like a rising tide. It isn’t the touch of hands moving over him, bringing a growing mindfulness of his own body. It isn’t a returning awareness of what is that sends him hurling into full wakefulness with a gasp. It is the knowledge of what isn’t, the lack of something that should be there.
There is no weight in his arms. There is no Dom.
And the scream that has been trapped in his throat comes tearing free in a shriek of anguish.
Dom! He’s let go of Dom! He’s dropped him! After all the promises, he’s let him fall!
And hands are on him, trying to press him back, hold him down. Nameless hands. Faceless hands. He fights them, half deranged, not fully aware of what he is doing, only knowing that Dom is gone and he is to blame. The hands become more determined, more insistent. He growls and thrashes, striking out with fists and feet. Hears a grunt and a swift curse. And then someone is fastening something tight across his chest; something that holds him down, holds him trapped. And then they are forcing his limbs into restraints. And he’s started to cry because they are not the leather restraints Dom keeps in a drawer by his bed and pulls out when he is in a particularly naughty mood. Not the nubuck lined cuffs with the roller buckles that fasten Billy’s squirming hands to the headboard while Dom does delicious things to him.
…and they never will be again.
The voices around him are all a jumble of sound, overwhelming. Like he’s been knocked off his surfboard and is tumbling about beneath the waves, totally disoriented. Sky or sand. It is all the same. He is drowning, the roar of insanity flooding his ears.
Then someone grasps his face between long-fingered hands and holds him firmly, will not let him turn away, no matter how he tries to hide. Hands hold his head immobile while breath chuff softly against his face, and then there is the touch of lips pressing a gentle kiss against his forehead. Billy snarls and bucks, and the lips retreat, only to return a moment later, brushing lightly over his mouth. Billy almost bites, but there is something about those lips. Something familiar. Something comforting. So he stills, panting, waiting for something without knowing precisely what that something might be.
And hears a voice, a low vibration of sound thrumming close to his ear.
“Ah, that got your attention, didn’t it? Pervy wanker.”
That voice. He knows that voice. Oh, how he knows that voice, in all its incarnation. Even now, tangled and knotted with threads of consternation, affection, and fretfulness, that voice is distinctive and unmistakable.
Dom?
And desolation once again wraps Billy in its malignant embrace. For it can’t be. Dom is dead. He plainly remembers dropping Dom.
…or does he?
“I know you’re in there, Billy Boyd,” the voice chides. “You best come out to play, because now you’re scaring Elijah. Much more of this and I think you two will be sharing one of those padded cells.”
No. No. No, thinks Billy. He doesn’t want to risk opening his eyes. As long as his eyes are safely shut, he can pretend Dom is really there. Can pretend the voice is real, and that Dom is sitting beside him, tie undone, and hair a fright, grinning like a loon. He doesn’t want to find out that Dom exists only in his mind. That the real Dom – his Dommeh - is dead, dashed to pieces on unforgiving concrete stories below. Dead because Billy failed him. That he, Billy Boyd, is well and truly bairned, and that Death has won yet again. As long as his eyes stay shut, he is safe from reality and still relatively sane.
“Bills?” There is a pause, then a sudden a shaky tremble of breath pitched for his ears only. “Please, Billy. I need you to open your eyes now.”
And Billy knows that tone too. The essential Dom, the marrow of Dom, when all the masks are stripped away and discarded. All the distractions set aside and the heart laid bare, like an offering on a plate. And it slips right through Billy’s defenses as if they are made of gossamer.
Slowly, Billy opens his eyes.
And blinks as Dom’s familiar off-kilter face swims into focus above him. The blue eyes framed in long lashes, the wide, expressive mouth, the squashed nose and stick out ears all topped by a bottle-blond mop. Quirky and beloved.
And after a couple stumbling tries, Billy finds his own voice. “Dom?”
The face splits into a toothsome grin. “Who else did you think it would be?”
But I dropped you.
But apparently he hadn’t, for Dom is here. Alive…
…or is he? Maybe his madness is more than auditory.
His gaze flickers over Dom’s features, searching for truth…for answers. Are you real?
He has to know.
“Kiss me,” he says, voice a rasp.
Dom’s eyebrows shoot towards his floppy hairline, and he glances around a bit nervously. The tip of a pink tongue flicks across his bottom lip, leaving it glistening. “What?”
“Kiss me.”
“Billy…” Dom’s smile takes on a slightly apprehensive tilt. “We’re not alone here, mate. Lot’s of people, you know?”
Billy glances around…catches sight of Sean and Elijah, hovering in the background, surrounded by the movement and chaos of emergency personnel, hotel staff and media reps. Elijah looks broken, white faced and exhausted, huddled in Sean’s arms. And Sean himself seems unsteady on his feet. Billy sees his own weariness reflected in their strained faces and bloodless lips.
His eyes flick back to Dom, who despite the relived smile, is more than a bit tattered around the edges himself.
“I dinnae care.”
And it is Dom’s turn to blink. His wide-eyed expression clearly reads, ‘Since when?’ As well it might, Billy supposes. Of the two of them, he has always been the one most uncomfortable with the public display of their feelings – worried about what people would think. How it might affect their careers. How others would perceive and judge them.
All of it shite.
Dom leans closer. “Are you sure?”
Billy gazes into Dom’s face, memory flashing with the vision of pale, lifeless features and blue eyes shuttered behind closed lids. He nods.
And the wide mouth descends upon his. Tentative at first, then more boldly, nipping at his bottom lip. Then his lips are being teased apart with a multi-talented tongue. And Billy gasps, because he knows that taste. Knows that mouth. Definitely knows that tongue.
No more doubts. Madness cannot be this sweet.
He lets himself relax into the kiss, savoring every moment. And when Dom pulls away, Billy is smiling. “Hey,” he breathes softly.
“Hey yourself,” Dom echoes, face brightening. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”
“Wasn’t so sure myself, there, for a bit.”
“Yeah, well I asked them to let me talk to you, but you were a bit off your head. I told them you would never hurt me, but they don’t know you like I do.”
But I did, Dom. I did hurt you.
Dom sighs and runs his hands up and down Billy arms, where they are secured to the sides of a collapsible stretcher. “Anyway, now look at you. Trussed up like a Christmas goose.”
“Giving you ideas, is it?”
Dom’s eyebrows dance in surprise, and he swallow laughter with a strangled choking sound. Billy is gratified to see a flush of embarrassment tingeing Dom’s cheeks.
Gotcha.
It feels good to share a playful moment when so much else seems unbalanced between them.
But the joviality is fleeting. Almost immediately, Dom’s eyes darken and flinch away, uncertain once again.
Billy’s heart aches in sympathy. He’s done this. Always with Billy, Dom’s felt at ease, accepted. And now he seems off balance, unsure of his place.
And Billy loves him all the more for his insecurity. Everything about Dom is precious in this moment: his skewed face, his nervous gestures, the way his blazer hangs too large in the shoulders, his knobby wrists and bird’s nest hair, and Billy watches him nervously, half fearful Dom might still vanish. Just slowly fade, go transparent and wink out of existence, like a soap bubble stretched too thin.
Billy inhales sharply, as though just now remembering how to use his lungs, and finds his voice again. “You fit like? You hit yer head.”
Dom runs a hand gingerly over the back of his head, grimacing as his fingers apparently encountered a sore spot. “Yeah. Bit of a whack. Knocked me cold.” His lopsided smile seems a bit rueful. “They told me what you did, Bills. Hanging on like that. Thank you.”
Billy winces, half turning away.
Don’t thank me, Dommeh. I bollocked it right up. Don’t thank me.
“It was nothing. What mates do, aye?”
Dom bites his bottom lip and looks down. One hand tugs fitfully at the hem of Billy’s suit jacket. “Mates. Right.”
Oh, Dom.
Billy huffs in frustration. He can’t seem to get anything right, and it is important, so important that he do so. “I love you,” he mouths, his voice dropping to near silence. Dom tilts his head with a puzzled look, as though he’d seen but didn’t quite trust himself to have gotten it right, half-convinced Billy was having him on.
I did that to you, thinks Billy, the taste of regret sour in his mouth.
He has a lot to make up for. A lot to undo.
And this time he is determined to speak his fears and failures aloud, letting them out of their cage and into the open where they will cower, awaiting whatever judgement Dom decrees.
“I did learn something while hanging out there contemplating oblivion,” he says, without preamble, gripped with a sudden urgency to make Dom understand in the short time they have before the emergency personal decide to stop being gracious and whisk them both away to hospital. The words fall awkwardly into the space between them. Unwieldy. Sharp edged. Raw. And Billy despairs. Things are supposed to fit between them, and now he feels as if he is trying to force the pieces into place… It is wrong. So wrong. “Nothing like a near death experience to put things in perspective, aye?”
Dom is watching him cautiously. Probably trying to decide it maybe Billy isn’t fifty pee to the pound after all.
“What’s that?” he asks, almost apprehensively, then softens it with a smile. “ I should maybe lay off the Jaffa cakes?”
It is so like Dom to try and put them at ease again, and Billy dredges up his own smile to let Dom know he understands and appreciated the gift.
“No, deevilick. I learned if I ever break up with someone, it should be on the ground floor.”
But the lighthearted mood is forced, and they both know it.
There’s a moment of awkward silence. And it is so wrong, this wariness between them. It is a raw wound. They are still hemorrhaging, Billy realizes, and it is up to him to start the healing.
“Seriously, Dom,” he says, “ I learned some things about me. About what I really want. I’ve been a right bahookie. And feel free to say I told you so, because you did. I just didn’t want to hear.” He twists in his bonds, his small hands twitching restlessly in their restraints as he struggles with the sudden need to touch – to reach out and pull Dom into an embrace. “I think I knew all along, but I’ve been listening to my head, not my heart. I knew it every time I kissed her or kissed you, but I was trying to want what I thought I should, not what I really want.”
Dom leans closer, voice lowered for Billy’s ears only. “And what do you want Bills?”
“You,” Billy chokes past the sudden lump in his throat. “If you’ll still have me.”
“Billy….”
“No, listen,” he spits out in panic, afraid Dom will turn away. No. No. Don’t say no! Give me a chance! “I was scared Dom. A sodding jessie.”
Dom’s brow furrows, and he looks vaguely amused, much to Billy’s disgust. “Scared of me?”
“No, not you, you tosser. Scared of all the shite that goes along you. I was scared to have you. But not having you is worse.” To his embarrassment, he discovers his voice has gone decidedly wobbly and his nose is starting to run. Very inconvenient when in restraints, but what can be done but flounder onward and hope for the best. “I love you, Dom. I want to be with you. And I’m tired of pretending and hiding and lying. So there is going to be a you-and-me. Whether Ali is part of it all or not, we can work it out somehow….” His voice drops to a tremulous whisper. “…if you still want to give me that chance.”
There. He’s said it. He’s gotten it all out. Billy has no illusions. None of this will be easy. Even if Dom accepts his proposal, they will need to talk through a lot of things. Certainly, there is still Ali to deal with, and Billy is weary of breaking hearts. Perhaps they can find some sort of tenuous balance, the three of them, if they are willing to put forth the effort. But for right now it is up to Dom.
Dom who is sitting on his heels watching Billy with an expression that for once seemed to give nothing away. Perfect, thinks Boyd. Mr. I-wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve Monaghan has decided to go all opaque just when Billy most needs to be able to see beneath the surface.
Dom tilts forward, studying Billy with the same intensity he usually reserves for things with six legs. “You mean all that?”
Billy gives a slow nod.
“Because an hour ago you swore you didn’t want me anymore.”
“I never said I didn’t want you. I always wanted you, Dommeh. I just convinced myself I couldn’t have ye.”
Dom seems to consider this. “So no more hiding? No more pretending we’re just mates?”
Billy takes a deep breath and nods again.
“I won’t be a bit on the side, Bills. Not anymore.”
“Aye…”
Another moment of consideration. “So I can take out a full page add in Variety if I want? Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan are pleased to announce their engagement?”
Billy cringes, sucking in air between his teeth. His third nod is somewhat forced, but no less sincere. “If that’s what it takes to convince you.”
Dom smirks, eyebrows doing a naughty dance along his hairline. “’I make you my queen. Whatever happens out there, here, you will always be my queen.’”
Billy snorts, “How long ‘ave you been waiting to use that line, aye?” But recognizing the film, he gamely joins in. “Be with me always, you daft numpty. Drive me feckin’ mad. Only don’t leave me alone in this dark where I can’t find you. I cannae live without my life and I cannae die without my soul.’”
Dom looms close. “That’s all I ever wanted, Bills. You know that…” And then Dom kisses him as slowly, gently and sweetly as any romantic couple in the history of cinema. Or at least that is Billy’s impression until Dom pulls back to rub their noses together a la Eskimo style and withdraws suddenly, fingers flying to his face. “Ick! Your nose is all snotty!”
Billy laughs, loud and hard, the tension leaking out of him, “Oi, you unromantic muppet! That’s not from Wuthering Heights!”
Dom looks aggrieved. “Well, as I recall, Laurence Olivier didn’t have a snotty nose.” But he obliging leans forward, placing his mouth close to Billy’s ear.. “How’s this then, ‘If she loved you with all the power of her soul for her whole lifetime, she couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day.’”
And Billy decides that he might just start trusting in Valentine card sentimentality, ‘happily ever after's’, and marmalade skies after all. “You blatherskite,” he counters, trying to take the piss and failing miserably, judging from the sappy, answering grin on Dom’s face.
However, their temporary amnesty is apparently over, for the rescue workers are finally moving in to separate them for transport to hospital. Before they can be parted, Billy catches Dom’s gaze and murmurs “Tha gaol agam ort, Dommeh.”
“I love it when you talk dirty,” Dom snickers.
Then Billy’s stretcher is being lifted, and he hisses, feeling a bit sick with the swaying motion.
Dom’s hand seeks out Billy, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Love you too, you daft apeth,” he murmurs before his fingers slip free.
And Billy thinks if he were the director, that is where he would end the scene, neatly avoiding the gauche pandemonium of paramedics, paparazzi and police waiting in the wings.
But once again, he has underestimated Dominic Monaghan, who cannot resist a scene stealing parting shot.
“Hey Boyd,” he shouts as Billy is carried from the room and thus is in no position to reply, “just for argument’s sake, how much do you think a full page spread in Variety will set me back?”
****
Fini
Pairing: Monaboyd (Who else?)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Not even going to try…just strap yourselves in.
Disclaimer: Exists only in my imagination. I need therapy. Don’t hurt me.
This is Part II
****
It is nothing like bungee jumping.
There is no carefully controlled launch. There is a confusion of wind-buffeted arms and legs clutching and wrapping around each other in a tumble of mutual shock.
There is no calm breathing exercises to keep you focused. There are shared screams, final desperate cries of denial wretched from throats and torn away by the wind.
There is no beautiful vista opening beneath them. There is a dizzying somersault of sensory overload… a spinning pandemonium of sky, concrete façade, and cityscape jumbling the senses.
There is no comforting knowledge of a cord tied around ankles to eventually stop a fall. There is only the mind annihilating terror of death approaching at light speed.
There is no gradual slowing as the bungee cord pulls taut. There is an abrupt yank as the fire hose around Billy’s middle suddenly reaches the end of its length. The two of them are torn out of free fall by a jerk so powerful, it seems to be trying to pull them out of reality into an alternate existence.
Dom feels more than hears Billy cry out in pain as the hose tightens around his chest. The sudden shift in motion nearly rips Dom free of Billy’s arms. He feels himself slide downward, still falling as Billy comes to an abrupt halt. In panic, he tightens his hold, and feels Billy do the same, his legs wrapping around Dom’s body, sealing them even closer together.
And then they spin, whirling in space like drunken marionettes. Dom finds his mouth flooded with the metallic taste of blood, and figures he’s bitten his tongue, though he registers no pain. He swallows thickly, not knowing what else to do. The iron taste and spinning motion send his senses reeling and he closes his eyes and wills himself not to be sick. Pressed close to Billy’s abdomen, he can hear the staccato pounding of his friend’s heart. Or maybe that is his own heart’s frantic tripping which fills his ears. Either way, it gives him something to focus upon to try and calm his heart and mind and stomach.
With eyes closed, he doesn’t see the side of the building looming closer. Doesn’t even know they are headed for it until it slams into him from behind, hard. His head is thrown back by the impact and strikes sharply against the granite façade. Lights and pain explode behind his eyes, agonizing flashes of white and red that fade along with his consciousness.
****
When he and Dom are hurled into the side of the building, Billy is still disoriented, his mind seemingly caught in the same crazed pirouettes as his body. His chest feels crushed, all the breath having been driven from his lungs when the firehose tightened around him. He can only draw air in short, inadequate gulps that leave him lightheaded and dizzy. He has seen the hard stone of the building approaching. He should realize the threat. Should cry out a warning. But he is too lost in his own panic and pain. He doesn’t really see, doesn’t understand till they hit. He actually hears the crack as Monaghan’s head bounces against the stone. Dom lets out stifled cry, and then melts, going slack in Billy’s arms. Billy feels the long fingers slowly loosening, releasing their death grip. Limp arms slide free and fall wide, fingers uncurling. And as Dom’s suddenly lax weight drags him even further from Billy’s clasp, Boyd throws back his head, cursing Dom, fate, and fecking L.A. in a breathless keen of frustration offered up to the heavens.
Entwined, they bounce along the side of the building, then spin away again, twisting on the end of their lifeline. Lying limp in Billy’s arms, Dom sways with the motion, lashes stark against his waxen-pale face, mouth slightly parted, a small trickle of blood staining the corner of his lips. He looks dead, and Billy feels his heart stutter in his chest.
No. No. No. No, he chants to himself, not sure if he is speaking only in his mind or if the words of denial are actually slipping passed his lips.
Dom isn’t dead.
Billy will not let him be dead.
He has lost to Death before. Years ago, Death crept into his life and stole away love and security. But then he had only been a boy – a small, frightened boy with only a child’s strength. Now he is a man, with a man’s will and a man’s determination and he will not let Death lay waste to his life again without fighting with everything he has.
Billy grits his teeth and clutches Dom to his slight frame, wrapping arms, legs - the very fiber of his being - around his friend.
Not dead, he tells himself. Not dead, just unconscious. And as such, totally in Billy’s care.
They hit the side of the building again, with less force this time, bouncing a couple times, then just hang there, swaying in a gently pendulum motion that is almost comforting. Dom’s shaggy, blond head lolls loosely with the motions, exposing his pale, vulnerable throat to the sky. The thin thread of blood from his mouth has begun to curl across this throat, as though laying a path in anticipation of a blade. Yet his empty palms, fallen open, seem to plead for deliverance.
Sacrifice or redemption.
Deliverance or death.
It appears Dom had checked out and left the choice up to Billy. Laid his life in Billy’s hands – or more specifically in the strength of those small hands, those slender fingers, the ability of them to hold on even against the inexorable pull of gravity that is threatening to wrench them apart.
Unconscious, Dom will never know if Billy drops him. Will never know if Billy fails and yields Dom up to gravity and annihilation. He will fall to his death blessedly unaware that his best friend and lover has let him slip away.
But Billy will know.
Billy will always know.
And so he clings, muscles twitching with the strain. His heart and mind crying out in despair with every fraction Dom slides lower in his grip.
He will not let Dom go.
Will not let him fall.
He will NOT.
Above, he thinks he can hear screaming. Sean and Elijah he supposes. He feels a twinge of pity for them. What a godawful situation to be in, watching your friends dangle above certain death, but then again, his situation is far worse, so perhaps he should save his sympathy.
The vice around his chest will not ease, and he wonders about broken ribs. He also wonders about the strength of the firehose. In his mind, he can envision it slowly unraveling or pulling free of the wall. Come to think of it, isn’t what happened in the movie when the hero tied himself to a firehose? How come he hadn’t remembered that till now? Just how heavy are he and Dom anyway? Whatever Dom weighed he seems to have gained at least three stone in the last few minutes.
Billy starts doing calculations in his head, adding up their combined weight, then quite deliberately makes himself stop. It will do no good. Either the hose will hold, or it won’t. Fretting about it will change nothing, and he has other more immediate things to think about, like not losing a hold of Dom who seems to be inching lower in his arms with every breath. However, dropping him is not an option, will never be an option. He’d made that mistake once, he now realizes. Back in his hotel room. He had dropped Dom then, letting him slip through his fingers. Had turned away when Dom reached out for help and let him fall alone. Less than an hour ago, though it seems a lifetime.
“Please, Dom,” he begs. “Please don’t…”
And feels pain rip through his heart as he hears the echo of Dom’s own voice in his head, begging, “Please, Billy. Please don’t do this…”
How have they come to this? How did they ended up here, suspended above the Los Angeles skyline? It seems impossible, but then again, this is Dom, and nothing involving Dom is ever really predictable. It is one of the things Billy paradoxically finds both most endearing and most frustrating about his mate. Billy had expected hysterics. Had spent weeks steeling him to face Dom’s sense of betrayal and anger. He had known it would be distasteful; torturous and heart wrenching, but he had clung to the hope that their friendship would hold firm through it all. That they would emerge from the other side, more or less intact.
If they fell now, there would be nothing ‘intact’ about either of them.
He had thought he was prepared, but how do you prepare for the completely unimaginable? Is it all going to end like this? Talk about a grand exit. They will make headlines, that is certain. What will Ali think? Will she ever be able to put it all together? Will anyone?
It is a shame, but people most likely will blame Dom for all of it. He can almost hear the talk. That reckless Manchurian windae licker, arseing about on a building ledge. Probably shedded on drugs or alcohol. And he will be cast in the light of the Hobbit Hero, bravely trying to save his friend only to end up sacrificing his life. No one will ever realize that he had been the one who had set the whole fiasco in motion.
“I’m sorry, Dom,” he whispers, longing to run a hand through his lover’s unruly hair, feel the soft thatch sift through his fingers. But he doesn’t dare. Doesn’t dare loosen his hold even a fraction.
Oh, how he wishes those stormy eyes would open again. How he longs to gaze into them and beg forgiveness. Say, “I’m sorry. I do love you. I do,” again. If they are to die this way, at least grant him the chance to set things to rights.
****FLASHBACK****
When Dom went down on his knees, Billy finally had to turn his back. He simply couldn’t watch Dom debase himself like that, not without disintegrating into fragments, and one of them had to get them both though this relatively intact. He had planned for this. He’d known it would be grievous and messy, and leave them both spattered with emotional offal, but the reality of it turned out to be far worse than even the nightmares that had plagued him since he had determined to end it.
Billy hated it. He hated watching Dom bleed out in front of him, staining them both with sodden, red agony. He hated watching that familiar face twisted in anger and devastated by grief. He hated hearing that beloved accent go rough with tears and caustic with outrage. He hated watching someone with such personal integrity reduced to begging on his knees.
He hated being the cause of all of it. It made him ill, and when it was all over he had no doubt he would spend several hours of penance on his knees crouched over the porcelain altar, vomiting up everything he’d eaten for a month.
Billy understood pain. He understood loss and heartbreak, but Billy also understood reality.
There were no ‘happily ever after’s. There were, ‘we do the best we can’s, and ‘we make the most of what we have’s, and that sometimes you just had to settle for less than perfect, because life wasn’t perfect. Billy knew that, and he knew that most of the time you have to make your own happiness, because no one is going to give it to you.
But Dom…Dom was still begging for lollipops.
And at times this gulf of years and experience between them seemed insurmountable, because things Billy dismissed as sappy sentimentality, Dom held as truths. Dom believed in things like ‘the power of group hugs’ and ‘you and me against the world’ and ‘love conquers all’. For him, life was the Beatles soaring through marmalade skies, singing, “All you need is love…” joined by a chorus of dancing stars; while in Billy’s head the Stones sneered, “You can’t always get what you want…”
And dammit, Dom had to grow up sometime, but Billy hadn’t really wanted to be the one to force it upon him. He’d have much preferred to have been on the other end of a phone conversation, offering comfort and solace while Dom cried out his broken heart. And that was one reason he had put this off for so long. He hadn’t wanted to be the cause of this kind of distress. Hadn’t wanted to see the betrayal and hurt on Dom’s face. He had hoped Dom would find someone else, someone to ease the parting, but Dom hadn’t wanted to let go, and it seemed the farther away they were physically, the more closely Dom clung emotionally.
Billy wouldn’t deny they were good together. They were more than good. Dom was like another part of himself he hadn’t known was missing till he stumbled across it. And that in itself was frightening, because when he was around Dom, Billy sometimes felt like he was a different person. Someone who could too easily start believing in Valentine card sentimentality, happily-ever-after's, and marmalade skies.
And that was dangerous.
So this had to end.
Billy was going to marry Ali. They were going to have a nice home and a good life, and grow old together, and to do that, Billy had to give up Dom. And Dom had to give up Billy.
They could still be friends. Best mates. Billy wanted that. He didn’t want to lose all of Dom. He wanted Dom in his life forever, but some things had to change, because things did. They changed, and it was high time Dom got that through his thick, Mancunian skull.
And Billy told him so.
Then ducked when Dom hurled an ashtray at him.
But through it all, he held it together, gave as good as he got, maintained his emotional distance until Dom sank to his knees, begging. And then he had to turn away. His back was still turned when Dom finally left, slamming out the door. Only then did he allow himself to sink onto the bed and fall apart.
It was there Sean and Elijah later found him. And while Sean sat beside him and pulled him into a tight embrace, Elijah went in search of Dom.
And returned white faced and babbling about Dom and suicide and “OhmyGodyougottocomequick…”
***
Something cool ticks his chin, and Billy realizes it is a tear, poised to fall into the oblivion below. He hasn’t even realized he is crying, but his face is wet with the evidence that he has been weeping for some time. Strange. He would not have thought he had any tears left today.
Dom slips a fraction lower and Billy closes his eyes, his world narrowing to just the two of them, holding on, rocking gently on a slender lifeline.
He dredges up words, shrouded in time. Words of comfort. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” Images come back to him - Sundays spent sitting beside his sister and his Gram in the drafty, stone church of his youth. “Thy rod and staff they are a comfort to me.” He might not be getting the words exactly right. It has been a long time since he heard his grandmother reciting them, but Billy chooses to believe the Almighty wouldn’t be overly concerned about semantics under the circumstances. His Scottish lilt rises and falls, indistinct amid the sounds of traffic below. A lone, tearful voice on the verge of panic, seeking some sort of mooring in the sound of prayer.
“Thou art with me…I will fear no evil…I will fear no…”
God, I am so afraid…
“Mr. Boyd? Can you hear me? Mr. Boyd? Billy?”
It takes Billy a moment to realize that someone is calling his name – a voice from above - and his first reaction is a faint sense of disappointment, for although God has a pleasantly deep and calming voice, he apparently also has an American accent. Then his rational mind catches up, and his eyes fly open in surprise.
“Billy? Can you hear me? Up here, son.”
By tilting his head back, Billy can gaze up the side of the building into the dark, strong-featured face of a man leaning out a window few meters above them. The man’s gear and apparel identify him as a firefighter.
Relief floods through Billy and he relaxes just a fraction.
And Dom slips.
In panic, Billy tightens his hold again, chanting, “No no no no!” Not now. Not when rescue is finally at hand. “Just a bit longer, Dommeh. Just a wee bit longer, love.”
He tilts his face up the rescue worker, straining to get enough breath into his lungs to make his voice heard, “Please. He’s slipping. I can’t hold him. Please help us!”
He isn’t sure if the firefighter is able to discern his words, but the man seems reassured that Billy is at least responding to him. He starts explaining what he is planning while his hands are busy working with various pieces of rope and safety gear. “We’re coming down to you, Billy. We will get some rescue shorts on you and your friend and lower you both through a window below you. Just hold on a few minutes longer.”
“Just hold on…” The man makes it sound so simple.
Not so simple, thinks Billy, as his body trembling with the strain. Not so simple, aye Dom? None of this is simple. You and I don’t do simple, do we? At least I don’t do simple when you’re around.
As if in reply to the unspoken commentary, Dom lets out a soft grunt of sound and begins to stir in Billy’s arms.
Oh, shite! Billy wails in silent panic as Dom struggles towards wakefulness. Not now! Unaware of their precarious position, Dom’s increasingly distraught motions set them swaying again. Semi-conscious, he registers only that he is being restricted. Whimpering, he begins to fret, arms and legs flailing about in an effort to escape Billy’s hold.
“Dom, you eejit! Stop it!” snaps Billy, striving to maintain his hold on his squirming friend. What had he been wishing for just minutes ago? That Dom would wake up? He takes it all back. “Go back to sleep, you great pillock. You’re going to get us both killed!”
Dom arches in Billy’s hold, hands trying to push away, to get free.
Not this time, vows Boyd. I’m not letting you go so easily this time, Dommeh. Learned my lesson, I did.
So intent is he on holding onto a writhing Monaghan, he doesn’t register the two firefighters lowering themselves from the window above, until they are nearly on top of him. As it is, when four legs and two pair of black boots suddenly intrude on his awareness, he squeaks in surprise and nearly drops Dom anyway.
He is very glad he has opted not to wear his black, wool kilt to this affair. This whole situation is awkward enough without having to worry about flashing half of L.A. while being rescued. He’d thought about wearing it. Had even packed the thing, carefully wrapped in tissue. However, Dom has a thing for Billy in a “skirt” as he has so often mentioned. Usually it is something Billy enjoys exploiting. But not this trip. This trip he has done his best not to whet Dom’s appetites. The kilt had stayed in the suitcase.
“Easy,” reassures a voice. A woman’s voice, Billy realizes. “We’re almost with you.” Then suddenly there is a strong boned woman dangling at his side, a firefighter with frizzy, light hair peeking out from under her helmet. She gives him a quick smile. “We’re going to rig you up, now.” Behind Dom, Billy can see the dark skinned firefighter working swiftly to fasten some sort of emergency harness contraption around Dom.
“I cannae let go!” Billy starts to explain, fearful they are going to try and take Dom away from him. “I have to hold on to him. See, I dropped him before! I dinnae mean to…but I did. I dropped him!” The firefighter is working as quickly and efficiently as her partner, passing some sort of harness around his body, as Billy continues to try an explain to her, to Dom, to himself, the folly of his decision. “I didn’t think I could have her and still hold onto him, so I let him go and he fell. I didn’t mean to do that. It was just I was fearty you see…but this is worse. Losing him. I can’t live with that. I got it all backwards, you see? I thought I couldn’t be with him, but I can’t be without him.”
On some level he realizes he is havering. But that is all right. This is all a nightmare anyway, and you aren’t supposed to make sense in a nightmare. Besides, he figures rescue workers are used to dealing with nutters. They do it all the time, at least that’s the way it seems on those American reality entertainment shows Dom and Elijah like to cajole him into watching… a whole world filled with nutters it sometimes seems, and now, here he is, another of those balmy people. But maybe they aren’t so balmy. Maybe they are just really scared. Or really worried about the people they love. Or just very confused. Maybe they aren’t so different. He doesn’t think he’ll be laughing at the people on those shows much after this.
Dom is still wriggling in agitation, like a restless worm on a hook. Moaning, he whips his head rapidly from side to side, and whacks Boyd hard across the chin.
Billy’s head jolts back from the blow. Shooting stars flare across his sight, followed by creeping blackness, which bleeds across his vision, swallowing the light.
Oh no! He can’t loose consciousness! He will drop Dom! Billy draws in deep, rapid breaths, trying to fight the encroaching darkness, but despite the screaming denial in his own mind, he feels himself succumbing. Feels his body going numb, slipping from his control. Feels his grip loosening. Feels Dom sliding free. Reality drains away, narrowing down to a pinpoint. No! No! No!
Billy tries to scream.
He never knows if the sound leaves his throat.
*****
When Billy regains consciousness, it isn’t the rebound of things that have been missing that he notes first. It isn’t the seep of light, creeping under the edges of barely open lids. It isn’t the welling of sound, of strange voices and movement swirling around him like a rising tide. It isn’t the touch of hands moving over him, bringing a growing mindfulness of his own body. It isn’t a returning awareness of what is that sends him hurling into full wakefulness with a gasp. It is the knowledge of what isn’t, the lack of something that should be there.
There is no weight in his arms. There is no Dom.
And the scream that has been trapped in his throat comes tearing free in a shriek of anguish.
Dom! He’s let go of Dom! He’s dropped him! After all the promises, he’s let him fall!
And hands are on him, trying to press him back, hold him down. Nameless hands. Faceless hands. He fights them, half deranged, not fully aware of what he is doing, only knowing that Dom is gone and he is to blame. The hands become more determined, more insistent. He growls and thrashes, striking out with fists and feet. Hears a grunt and a swift curse. And then someone is fastening something tight across his chest; something that holds him down, holds him trapped. And then they are forcing his limbs into restraints. And he’s started to cry because they are not the leather restraints Dom keeps in a drawer by his bed and pulls out when he is in a particularly naughty mood. Not the nubuck lined cuffs with the roller buckles that fasten Billy’s squirming hands to the headboard while Dom does delicious things to him.
…and they never will be again.
The voices around him are all a jumble of sound, overwhelming. Like he’s been knocked off his surfboard and is tumbling about beneath the waves, totally disoriented. Sky or sand. It is all the same. He is drowning, the roar of insanity flooding his ears.
Then someone grasps his face between long-fingered hands and holds him firmly, will not let him turn away, no matter how he tries to hide. Hands hold his head immobile while breath chuff softly against his face, and then there is the touch of lips pressing a gentle kiss against his forehead. Billy snarls and bucks, and the lips retreat, only to return a moment later, brushing lightly over his mouth. Billy almost bites, but there is something about those lips. Something familiar. Something comforting. So he stills, panting, waiting for something without knowing precisely what that something might be.
And hears a voice, a low vibration of sound thrumming close to his ear.
“Ah, that got your attention, didn’t it? Pervy wanker.”
That voice. He knows that voice. Oh, how he knows that voice, in all its incarnation. Even now, tangled and knotted with threads of consternation, affection, and fretfulness, that voice is distinctive and unmistakable.
Dom?
And desolation once again wraps Billy in its malignant embrace. For it can’t be. Dom is dead. He plainly remembers dropping Dom.
…or does he?
“I know you’re in there, Billy Boyd,” the voice chides. “You best come out to play, because now you’re scaring Elijah. Much more of this and I think you two will be sharing one of those padded cells.”
No. No. No, thinks Billy. He doesn’t want to risk opening his eyes. As long as his eyes are safely shut, he can pretend Dom is really there. Can pretend the voice is real, and that Dom is sitting beside him, tie undone, and hair a fright, grinning like a loon. He doesn’t want to find out that Dom exists only in his mind. That the real Dom – his Dommeh - is dead, dashed to pieces on unforgiving concrete stories below. Dead because Billy failed him. That he, Billy Boyd, is well and truly bairned, and that Death has won yet again. As long as his eyes stay shut, he is safe from reality and still relatively sane.
“Bills?” There is a pause, then a sudden a shaky tremble of breath pitched for his ears only. “Please, Billy. I need you to open your eyes now.”
And Billy knows that tone too. The essential Dom, the marrow of Dom, when all the masks are stripped away and discarded. All the distractions set aside and the heart laid bare, like an offering on a plate. And it slips right through Billy’s defenses as if they are made of gossamer.
Slowly, Billy opens his eyes.
And blinks as Dom’s familiar off-kilter face swims into focus above him. The blue eyes framed in long lashes, the wide, expressive mouth, the squashed nose and stick out ears all topped by a bottle-blond mop. Quirky and beloved.
And after a couple stumbling tries, Billy finds his own voice. “Dom?”
The face splits into a toothsome grin. “Who else did you think it would be?”
But I dropped you.
But apparently he hadn’t, for Dom is here. Alive…
…or is he? Maybe his madness is more than auditory.
His gaze flickers over Dom’s features, searching for truth…for answers. Are you real?
He has to know.
“Kiss me,” he says, voice a rasp.
Dom’s eyebrows shoot towards his floppy hairline, and he glances around a bit nervously. The tip of a pink tongue flicks across his bottom lip, leaving it glistening. “What?”
“Kiss me.”
“Billy…” Dom’s smile takes on a slightly apprehensive tilt. “We’re not alone here, mate. Lot’s of people, you know?”
Billy glances around…catches sight of Sean and Elijah, hovering in the background, surrounded by the movement and chaos of emergency personnel, hotel staff and media reps. Elijah looks broken, white faced and exhausted, huddled in Sean’s arms. And Sean himself seems unsteady on his feet. Billy sees his own weariness reflected in their strained faces and bloodless lips.
His eyes flick back to Dom, who despite the relived smile, is more than a bit tattered around the edges himself.
“I dinnae care.”
And it is Dom’s turn to blink. His wide-eyed expression clearly reads, ‘Since when?’ As well it might, Billy supposes. Of the two of them, he has always been the one most uncomfortable with the public display of their feelings – worried about what people would think. How it might affect their careers. How others would perceive and judge them.
All of it shite.
Dom leans closer. “Are you sure?”
Billy gazes into Dom’s face, memory flashing with the vision of pale, lifeless features and blue eyes shuttered behind closed lids. He nods.
And the wide mouth descends upon his. Tentative at first, then more boldly, nipping at his bottom lip. Then his lips are being teased apart with a multi-talented tongue. And Billy gasps, because he knows that taste. Knows that mouth. Definitely knows that tongue.
No more doubts. Madness cannot be this sweet.
He lets himself relax into the kiss, savoring every moment. And when Dom pulls away, Billy is smiling. “Hey,” he breathes softly.
“Hey yourself,” Dom echoes, face brightening. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”
“Wasn’t so sure myself, there, for a bit.”
“Yeah, well I asked them to let me talk to you, but you were a bit off your head. I told them you would never hurt me, but they don’t know you like I do.”
But I did, Dom. I did hurt you.
Dom sighs and runs his hands up and down Billy arms, where they are secured to the sides of a collapsible stretcher. “Anyway, now look at you. Trussed up like a Christmas goose.”
“Giving you ideas, is it?”
Dom’s eyebrows dance in surprise, and he swallow laughter with a strangled choking sound. Billy is gratified to see a flush of embarrassment tingeing Dom’s cheeks.
Gotcha.
It feels good to share a playful moment when so much else seems unbalanced between them.
But the joviality is fleeting. Almost immediately, Dom’s eyes darken and flinch away, uncertain once again.
Billy’s heart aches in sympathy. He’s done this. Always with Billy, Dom’s felt at ease, accepted. And now he seems off balance, unsure of his place.
And Billy loves him all the more for his insecurity. Everything about Dom is precious in this moment: his skewed face, his nervous gestures, the way his blazer hangs too large in the shoulders, his knobby wrists and bird’s nest hair, and Billy watches him nervously, half fearful Dom might still vanish. Just slowly fade, go transparent and wink out of existence, like a soap bubble stretched too thin.
Billy inhales sharply, as though just now remembering how to use his lungs, and finds his voice again. “You fit like? You hit yer head.”
Dom runs a hand gingerly over the back of his head, grimacing as his fingers apparently encountered a sore spot. “Yeah. Bit of a whack. Knocked me cold.” His lopsided smile seems a bit rueful. “They told me what you did, Bills. Hanging on like that. Thank you.”
Billy winces, half turning away.
Don’t thank me, Dommeh. I bollocked it right up. Don’t thank me.
“It was nothing. What mates do, aye?”
Dom bites his bottom lip and looks down. One hand tugs fitfully at the hem of Billy’s suit jacket. “Mates. Right.”
Oh, Dom.
Billy huffs in frustration. He can’t seem to get anything right, and it is important, so important that he do so. “I love you,” he mouths, his voice dropping to near silence. Dom tilts his head with a puzzled look, as though he’d seen but didn’t quite trust himself to have gotten it right, half-convinced Billy was having him on.
I did that to you, thinks Billy, the taste of regret sour in his mouth.
He has a lot to make up for. A lot to undo.
And this time he is determined to speak his fears and failures aloud, letting them out of their cage and into the open where they will cower, awaiting whatever judgement Dom decrees.
“I did learn something while hanging out there contemplating oblivion,” he says, without preamble, gripped with a sudden urgency to make Dom understand in the short time they have before the emergency personal decide to stop being gracious and whisk them both away to hospital. The words fall awkwardly into the space between them. Unwieldy. Sharp edged. Raw. And Billy despairs. Things are supposed to fit between them, and now he feels as if he is trying to force the pieces into place… It is wrong. So wrong. “Nothing like a near death experience to put things in perspective, aye?”
Dom is watching him cautiously. Probably trying to decide it maybe Billy isn’t fifty pee to the pound after all.
“What’s that?” he asks, almost apprehensively, then softens it with a smile. “ I should maybe lay off the Jaffa cakes?”
It is so like Dom to try and put them at ease again, and Billy dredges up his own smile to let Dom know he understands and appreciated the gift.
“No, deevilick. I learned if I ever break up with someone, it should be on the ground floor.”
But the lighthearted mood is forced, and they both know it.
There’s a moment of awkward silence. And it is so wrong, this wariness between them. It is a raw wound. They are still hemorrhaging, Billy realizes, and it is up to him to start the healing.
“Seriously, Dom,” he says, “ I learned some things about me. About what I really want. I’ve been a right bahookie. And feel free to say I told you so, because you did. I just didn’t want to hear.” He twists in his bonds, his small hands twitching restlessly in their restraints as he struggles with the sudden need to touch – to reach out and pull Dom into an embrace. “I think I knew all along, but I’ve been listening to my head, not my heart. I knew it every time I kissed her or kissed you, but I was trying to want what I thought I should, not what I really want.”
Dom leans closer, voice lowered for Billy’s ears only. “And what do you want Bills?”
“You,” Billy chokes past the sudden lump in his throat. “If you’ll still have me.”
“Billy….”
“No, listen,” he spits out in panic, afraid Dom will turn away. No. No. Don’t say no! Give me a chance! “I was scared Dom. A sodding jessie.”
Dom’s brow furrows, and he looks vaguely amused, much to Billy’s disgust. “Scared of me?”
“No, not you, you tosser. Scared of all the shite that goes along you. I was scared to have you. But not having you is worse.” To his embarrassment, he discovers his voice has gone decidedly wobbly and his nose is starting to run. Very inconvenient when in restraints, but what can be done but flounder onward and hope for the best. “I love you, Dom. I want to be with you. And I’m tired of pretending and hiding and lying. So there is going to be a you-and-me. Whether Ali is part of it all or not, we can work it out somehow….” His voice drops to a tremulous whisper. “…if you still want to give me that chance.”
There. He’s said it. He’s gotten it all out. Billy has no illusions. None of this will be easy. Even if Dom accepts his proposal, they will need to talk through a lot of things. Certainly, there is still Ali to deal with, and Billy is weary of breaking hearts. Perhaps they can find some sort of tenuous balance, the three of them, if they are willing to put forth the effort. But for right now it is up to Dom.
Dom who is sitting on his heels watching Billy with an expression that for once seemed to give nothing away. Perfect, thinks Boyd. Mr. I-wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve Monaghan has decided to go all opaque just when Billy most needs to be able to see beneath the surface.
Dom tilts forward, studying Billy with the same intensity he usually reserves for things with six legs. “You mean all that?”
Billy gives a slow nod.
“Because an hour ago you swore you didn’t want me anymore.”
“I never said I didn’t want you. I always wanted you, Dommeh. I just convinced myself I couldn’t have ye.”
Dom seems to consider this. “So no more hiding? No more pretending we’re just mates?”
Billy takes a deep breath and nods again.
“I won’t be a bit on the side, Bills. Not anymore.”
“Aye…”
Another moment of consideration. “So I can take out a full page add in Variety if I want? Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan are pleased to announce their engagement?”
Billy cringes, sucking in air between his teeth. His third nod is somewhat forced, but no less sincere. “If that’s what it takes to convince you.”
Dom smirks, eyebrows doing a naughty dance along his hairline. “’I make you my queen. Whatever happens out there, here, you will always be my queen.’”
Billy snorts, “How long ‘ave you been waiting to use that line, aye?” But recognizing the film, he gamely joins in. “Be with me always, you daft numpty. Drive me feckin’ mad. Only don’t leave me alone in this dark where I can’t find you. I cannae live without my life and I cannae die without my soul.’”
Dom looms close. “That’s all I ever wanted, Bills. You know that…” And then Dom kisses him as slowly, gently and sweetly as any romantic couple in the history of cinema. Or at least that is Billy’s impression until Dom pulls back to rub their noses together a la Eskimo style and withdraws suddenly, fingers flying to his face. “Ick! Your nose is all snotty!”
Billy laughs, loud and hard, the tension leaking out of him, “Oi, you unromantic muppet! That’s not from Wuthering Heights!”
Dom looks aggrieved. “Well, as I recall, Laurence Olivier didn’t have a snotty nose.” But he obliging leans forward, placing his mouth close to Billy’s ear.. “How’s this then, ‘If she loved you with all the power of her soul for her whole lifetime, she couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day.’”
And Billy decides that he might just start trusting in Valentine card sentimentality, ‘happily ever after's’, and marmalade skies after all. “You blatherskite,” he counters, trying to take the piss and failing miserably, judging from the sappy, answering grin on Dom’s face.
However, their temporary amnesty is apparently over, for the rescue workers are finally moving in to separate them for transport to hospital. Before they can be parted, Billy catches Dom’s gaze and murmurs “Tha gaol agam ort, Dommeh.”
“I love it when you talk dirty,” Dom snickers.
Then Billy’s stretcher is being lifted, and he hisses, feeling a bit sick with the swaying motion.
Dom’s hand seeks out Billy, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Love you too, you daft apeth,” he murmurs before his fingers slip free.
And Billy thinks if he were the director, that is where he would end the scene, neatly avoiding the gauche pandemonium of paramedics, paparazzi and police waiting in the wings.
But once again, he has underestimated Dominic Monaghan, who cannot resist a scene stealing parting shot.
“Hey Boyd,” he shouts as Billy is carried from the room and thus is in no position to reply, “just for argument’s sake, how much do you think a full page spread in Variety will set me back?”
****
Fini
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I have been following your situation, and just want you to know you have my best wishes. Be strong.
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So glad you enjoyed it! :)
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Anyway, I loved it more than I can say and I think I burnt my supper because I was too engrossed in it.
Thank you again.
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Fangirls, a fire hazzard to homes across the world. :P
And I am a bit partial to "plot" and "characterization" myself...
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There's absolutely nothing like an angsty story with a happy ending. Always makes me feel like I've been through the wringer, but it's a perfectly wonderful feeling as long as there's happiness at the end to cushion the blow.
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You though the scots was thick? Ooops. I actually tried to keep a reign on it. LOL! If you listen to interviews or flicks Billy's done in Scotland, his accent is a big thicker when he is among his own kin, as it were. But I really don't know if he uses Scottish slang or not. I chose to go with it, for variety's sake.
I suppose I'd prefer to err on the side of too much Scottish slang, than to have them using too much American slang and colloquialisms, a pet peeve of mine.
Just can't see Billy using "Dude..." you know?
Now, Dom on the other hand.... :P
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Lots of Scottish slang always makes me think of the story, "Does Anyone Have a Scottish-English Dictionary" - which alternately made me scratch my head, and laugh. I guess, based on that story, it's hard to take Billy seriously when he's using so much slang.
Anyway, I don't mean to imply that it really detracted from the story, because I did love the story!
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A Word To All
This afternooon, I will be attempting to replace my current hard drive, which is in the process of expiring on me. My friend who is helping me claims he knows what he is doing, but... let's just say this is the THIRD time we have tried this. So if I do not reply to a post in a timely manner, do not take it to heart. It probably means I am currently kicking my computer and my friend and yelling things about, "Needing my internet NOW, dangnabbit!"
Wish us luck.
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Just so you know- I read almost the entirety of this with tears just streaming down my cheeks. And I just...it felt real, like watching a really good independant movie. And the kiss at the end, was just- God, at first I thought you might be at risk of going into the certifiably cheesy but you officially proved me wrong and I stand corrected- it never once strayed from the REAL. The fall had me on the edge of my seat, I believe I nearly fell off when Dom's poor head hit the wall.
Amazing. 50 out of 10. If this was handed over as a script to an independant studio, they'd be criminal to turn it down.
I am sorry if I seem overenthusiastic- but this got me, and not many things do, and I think I'm being completely honest. Kicks the shit out of alot of books I've read.
Yeah. Ahem. *blush* Great work, loved it, amazing. Keep writing- preferably Monaboyd ;).
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Not to be confrontational, I'm just...annoying opinionated is probably the best way of putting it. Heh.
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Thank you so much for those flattering words! Such praise is always a bit hard to accept. I keep thinking, "Me? My writing did that?"
However, you are not the first person who has told me my writing has left them crying, and it is always a bit of a surprise to realize I wrote something that powerful. But then again, I sometimes go back and re-read something I wrote a couple years ago and am literally shaken about how much it affects me. I guess, just after writing, I am still to close to the source to really get a handle on how well it does or does not work.
I am very glad this one "worked" for you without crossing into cheesy...
Pee *who takes a quick bow and scitters off stage*
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Pee *who gives you a hug)
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*hugs you back*
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I understand your concerns about the teenage drama aspects of this, and this piece does skirt that line, but you manage to make it compelling and believable, even though I don't (in my personal imagination) see Dom quite doing what he does in the flashbacks. The fact that you can make me believe that in your story, and that I don't immediately reach for the back button, makes me bow to your writing skills. And, of course, the scene on the ledge is breathtaking. I find his confusion and the fact that he didn't ever intend to jump very believable, and the exchanges between them are riveting.
Your description of Dom's precognitive history and moments is lyrical, gorgeous and terrifying, and I think I loved that moment and the sequence that followed it above all things, including the lovely happy ending that I craved. Your sense of desperate longing and tenuous connections and deep gulfs and cosmic disconnection is brilliant, giving us a true glimpse of minds and life on the brink of the abyss. You have drawn for us an event horizon of stunning beauty and great fear.
I like the fact that when Billy regains himself, he also regains his fear of his life decisions, and that the way they work this out will not be easy or neat. I might have run screaming if such careful work had been ruined by a pat ending. You leave me very curious about how their lives will go after this, and that is a good thing. Needless to say, if you ever write a sequel, I'll be reading it. (This piece doesn't need it, of course, but you have left some nice room, should the notion take you.)
On the subject of Billy's Scottish speech, my view is that the slang is perfectly appropriate, and I have made note of many bits of it, and may appropriate certain words for future writing, if I you don't mind too much. I might urge a bit less phonetic spelling of the accent. I think that much can be shown by the judicious use of contractions, additional words and words unique to the speech in question. In this way, the reader can be given the cadence of the speech which then is likely to insinuate the accent clearly on the mind's ear without distracting the eye. This works particularly well when someone who writes well is intimately familiar with the speech in question, which you seem to be, here.
Thank you so much for this well-written, beautifully characterized story. I look forward, as always, to seeing more from you!
Catherine
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Catherine
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(Some day, a true Scott is going to come along and tell me I am full of it, but until then....)
q>I understand your concerns about the teenage drama aspects of this, and this piece does skirt that line, but you manage to make it compelling and believable... The fact that you can make me believe that in your story, and that I don't immediately reach for the back button, makes me bow to your writing skills.
Thank you so much for this comment. I know some people did not understand my concern, but I think you hit the nail on the head. I was really a bit worried that I had not only "skirted" but also "crossed" the line. The fact that you "see" where the danger lay, and still absolve me of resorting to cheap cliches, is very reassuring and heartening. I truly appreciate it.
Oh my word! That may be the most "lyrical" piece of feedback I have ever received. What lovely imagery - and that is just how you handle a bit of feedback... (shiver) Thank you!
Yes, that moment has some particular meaning for me, and I am glad someone mentioned it. I am afraid I am guilty of using something of myself to flesh out Dom's character at this point. This sense of precognition is something that I myself have experienced in the past,and it has long both intrigued and baffled me. I used it in part because it allowed for certain plot points to develop and added another layer to Dom's character, but also for the more selfish reason of hoping someone else would pick up on it and say, "Hey, yeah! I have had those moments too!" Thus, I might not feel so strange about my own experiences. How DOES one explain such moments and still believe in self determination and cause-effect?
Some quote comes to mind, about strange things in heaven and on earth, Horatio...
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Just for fun here, if Dom hadn't gotten that message, he might or might not have grabbed Billy, which might have made the immediate situation worse or better, but it took that fall for Billy to come to his senses, in your story, and such things in any universe are rarely to be gainsaid. It could be argued that it was the choices made by both of them that led to that situation, and I would argue that they had a large amount of freedom to choose different actions all the way up to that point.
This sort of thing is the main reason that I enjoy thinking about the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, even though it is dismissed by most reputable scientists as bunk. Choices fascinate me, both in their genesis and their consequences.
And Hamlet is my favourite play (I know I'm boring), so I shall certainly not object to that quote, especially as I tend to believe in it a bit!
Catherine
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I just came back from a week in Scotland a week ago, and appreciate the real Scottishness you gave to Billy's voice... not to mention the great "Hadrian's Wall" comment, and the vision of Billy as a blue-painted Pict - *L*!
But what really got me was the realistic flow and sequence of emotions that each of them goes through, the shifting of moods between the two of them, Dom's insecurity playing against Billy's fear of whether he can handle the rollercoaster life he would have with Dom. Sure, it downplays Ali's wonderful personality, making her into just a "safe" choice... although I'm glad to see that Billy realized he'd be breaking her heart almost as much as he had broken Dom's earlier, if he changed his mind.
But I was incredibly impressed. The characters and their actions and speech were spot on, the plot was great, and the little clever bits and pieces that make you smile ("Wuthering Heights", little thoughts that each of them had) were the icing on the cake that raise the level.
Excellent... just excellent.
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Yes, I rather liked that vision myself, especially when the kilt got caught in that cross breeze and sort of flew up... *ah hem* ...bare assed in the heather.... *yes*...ah....What were we discussing?
A trip to Scotland? Lucky you! I LOVE Scotland...only place I've ever been where I enjoyed being cold and wet and surrounded by sheep. LOL! I swear, even the sheep had these delightful little scottish accents. "Mehhhh Mayeeehhh. Maaaahhhhyyyy!"
Thanks for reading!
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*L*! Darn, didn't hear the sheep speak; I'll have to listen for them next time - *L*!
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Your characterizations were great. And I loved the angst, especially with the happy, happy ending.
I loved this so much. Thank you so much for sharing it with all of us.
~Cait
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Thank you for reading!
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THat SHOULD have been... "...but a happy ending allows you to start putting all the pieces together again."
Apologies
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The next time your Dark Muse pays you a visit, put the kettle on and hand her a plate of chocolate biscuits, and tell her I said 'hi'. :)
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But I will tell her "hi" and suggest she go visit YOU! LOL!
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Angstilicious. And such a (near-literal) cliff-hanger in part 1!
And speaking as a Scot myself, I thought it perfectly feasible that Billy might come out with some broad Glaswegian when under huge stress in such a situation as this (although I wouldn't necessarily spell some of the words that way, e.g. 'dunnae' I would probably have written as 'dinna' or 'dinnae' .. and I'm not sure what you mean by 'gaet'. Most of it was good though.)
Very enjoyable fic :)
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Thank you for reading and a special hug for all Brits in light of today's events in London.
Pee
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So glad you dropped in and had fun reading!
Pee
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Poo
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:)
Pee